The Tribune

By FAY SIMMONS

TRIBUNE Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

REPEATED electricity outages on Guana Cay have become so routine that residents now expect prolonged interruptions, with one homeowner yesterday noting the woes have persisted for at least two years.

Jen, a resident of North Guana Cay, said the northern end of the island is typically the last to have electricity restored, leaving residents facing extended periods without power even as service returns to other areas.

She said electricity is generally restored first to the south of the island before reaching the settlement area and, finally, the north, where she lives near Baker's Bay.

At the time of the interview, she said her area had been without electricity since approximately 10.30pm on Sunday, amounting to almost 72 hours without power. Jen said the recurring interruptions have become significantly worse than in previous years, when outages occurred occasionally but were not as frequent or prolonged.

“We've been living here on the island since 2015, so we've been around. And it was never like this. We’d have outages once in a while, of course, but certainly not to the extent that it is right now,” she said.

Jen said the island's electricity supply has recently been coming from Man-O-War Cay, but she questioned whether planned improvements to power generation would resolve the problems affecting North Guana Cay.

She added that the island's ageing electricity infrastructure remains a major concern, arguing that even if additional power became available, the existing cables might not be capable of reliably distributing it.

“The island cable infrastructure is very poor, so it doesn't matter if we're getting it from Wilson City plant or solar or whichever way, it still won't be able to go through the cables because the cables.. they've been in there for 30, 40 years,” she said.

Jen added that the infrastructure had also been affected by Hurricane Dorian, making improvements increasingly necessary.

Her comments come as Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) said a fault on the subsea cable supplying Guana Cay was preventing electricity from being extended beyond Guana Cay Town.

In a statement, the utility said weather conditions have prevented divers from locating the fault, leaving the island able to receive only partial power because of the configuration of its electrical system.

BPL explained that North Guana Cay operates at a different voltage from South Guana Cay, Orchid Bay and Guana Cay Town. While power can be supplied to Guana Cay Town, areas beyond the town required a step-down transformer to receive three-phase electricity at the appropriate voltage.

The transformer requires all three phases to be intact, but BPL said the subsea cable fault meant that three healthy phases were not currently available.

“As a result, power cannot presently be extended beyond Guana Cay Town,” the utility said, adding that full restoration remained dependent on repairs to either the subsea cable or the generation unit serving Guana Cay.

BPL said its teams will continue restoration efforts as weather conditions allow and that further updates will be provided as work progressed.

Jen said residents had been told at a community meeting the previous week that a new subsea connection running directly from Marsh Harbour to Guana Cay was being considered, potentially for the first quarter of next year. However, she said no firm timeline had been provided.

She welcomed the prospect of a new connection but warned it might not resolve the island's wider distribution problems if the internal cables remained in poor condition.

Jen said residents have not been informed of any plans to replace the island's internal electricity network, which she believed would require significant investment.

She estimated that replacing the cables across the island could be a longer-term undertaking, potentially requiring several years of work, but said residents had not been given details of a plan or budget.

While acknowledging that BPL was trying to address the electricity problems, Jen said residents needed greater clarity about how the utility intended to deliver a more dependable service to the island's communities.

She said the repeated outages were also affecting tourism, with some businesses that lacked back-up generators losing guests and visitors moving elsewhere because of the unreliable electricity supply.

Jen said she hoped the planned infrastructure improvements will bring relief to residents, but stressed that the condition of the island's distribution network needs to be addressed alongside any improvements to power generation and the subsea connection.